Hi!
Does anyone have a clone for Stella by chance? It's the wife's fav. beer and I would love to surprise her after 9 months of pregnancy and not being able to drink with some homebrew that tastes like stella...I understand this may be a tall order tho.

Well, yes and no.

You'd have to do an extract with full hop boil after getting some extract, hops, and yeast from your LHBS.

Yes, and you'd have to be able to ferment at lager temperatures, which means you'd have to be able to keep the fermenting beer at a pretty tightly controlled temperature of about 50° for at least 3 weeks, then lager it at cooler temps for a while longer. To be fair, the lagering CAN happen in bottles in your normal fridge, after carbing. But, you would still need good temp control.

Even with all that, I doubt we could get you an exact clone...BUT! We could get you in the ballpark with a beer that YOU made with SWMBO's gift to you! So, if you have a minifridge, or can get one cheap, or a wine fridge (as long as it will fit your LBK), and are willing to experiment with an extract plus hops boil recipe, we can probably get you in the ballpark.

Let us know which of those conditions you can meet, and we can tell you how close we can get you, and give you a recipe to work with...probably.

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lol

I was thinking something like wlp029 German Ale at cool ale temps.

Maybe...but even with German Ale or Kölsch or Notty or Cooper or whatever yeast, you need to ferment pretty darn cool...low to mid 60°s at the highest. So if he can do that, he might be able to ferment at 50-55°, using a true lager yeast.

Heck, if he has a mini fridge or even a second beer fridge, he might be able to get by using a lager yeast without a temp controller...if the thermostat at it's warmest setting gets around 45°, quite a few lager yeasts will ferment at that temp...though it'll take a lot of the buggers, and it will take a good while, they'll get the job done.

But, as the Prof mentioned, there are alternatives to true lager yeasts. Let us know what you can do, and we can probably come up with a recipe.

Ok, we can DEFINITELY come up with a recipe...but we can probably come up with one that will get you in the ballpark.

Heck, if he has a mini fridge or even a second beer fridge, he might be able to get by using a lager yeast without a temp controller...

This just in guys: the wife actually wanted to buy me a mini-fridge so that I stop using all the ice in the freezer to keep my beer cold (haha!). Probably going to take a look today at one.

Standing by to recieve...

What about using California Lager or San Fransisco Lager? I know it wouldn't be a step toward an actual "clone", but 60° is much easier to maintain with something like a "swamp cooler" or such then 50°. Just a thought, I have never used the warmer lager yeasts.
I have used SafLager at 60° and had decent results with a Pilsner and I know people here have used Notty at a lower temperatures.

Pilsen DME (maybe steep some carapils), a booster pack, and Saab hops would be close, I would think. Gravity around 1.050, and you'll be good to go.

I believe I have a Stella recipe in a "Clone Brew" recipe book.
I'd have to check.

Clone recipes are decent, but it can be quite difficult to nail down. I made a Harp Clone-ish type recpe.

I prefer to take a "clone" and tweak it to make it my own. So it's more "Stella-inspired" or in my case, "Harp-inspired".

Good luck.

Sounds like a good base...and if you can't find Saaz, Sterling are a great substitute.

Maybe something like this, just to get you in the neighborhood:

2 lbs Pilsen/Extra-Light DME
1/2 lb Booster

1/2 oz Saaz/Sterling @ 30"
1/4 oz Hallertauer/Liberty/Mt. Hood/Crystal etc @ 7"

Before you start (preferably even the night before), put 1-2 gallons of distilled water in the fridge (you'll probably need 1.5 gallons or so of this) and have another gallon sitting out at room temperature. Another option is to freeze a gallon of the distilled in sanitized containers the night before...that should help you get down to pitching temps very quickly.

Boil 1 lb DME and the 1/2 lb booster in 1 gallon of distilled water. Once you reach a boil and the hot break subsides (watch out for boilovers, DME LOVES to foam up as you bring it to a boil), add the 1 oz bittering/flavor addition of Saaz/Sterling. Start a 23" timer. When it goes off, add the 7" hops and set another timer for 6", and fill your sink with cold water. When it goes off, kill the heat and add the remaining 1 lb of DME, stirring like crazy. Once the DME is dissolved, put the pot in the sink of cold water. If your pot is big enough, add the gallon of cold distilled water from the fridge and put the lid on.

Keep the pot in the center of the sink, and stir the water around it until it gets warm. Then drain the water and refill. If you have ice or ice packs, you can add them now to help cool things down. If not, keep using cold water and refilling when it gets warm.

When the pot is cool to the touch, add the wort to your sanitized lbk and top up with cold water as normal. Whisk like crazy to aerate, whisk some more, and add your yeast.

If you think you can keep the beer temp down below 60°, a full pack of rehydrated Fermentis Saflager W-34/70 is a great choice for this beer. You can get away with not rehydrating it if you think that's too much, but it is definitely something that will help you to make the best beer possible.

If you can ferment in a sub-60° environment, this should get you in the general ballpark of Stella, without having to go to any extremes.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes, if you decide to try it!

Oh, and also...I'm not a Stella expert...so if someone is more familiar with it than I am, and would like to tweak my recipe or offer other suggestions, please feel free!

I'd love to see it. I know getting an exact recipe is gonna be difficult but its the thought and effort that matters most.

My bad, it was Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell. So no, I don't have it.

You could easily google; "Stella Artois homebrewing clone" and I'm sure it will bring up some results.

I found a couple good pages VIA google, here and here.

You can use something like Beercalculus to make sure your extract and hop amounts are good.

Looked like about 3 lbs light/pale extract, 60 minute hop boil, late addition at 5 minutes of saaz hops

Either a lager yeast (if you can keep temps 50-55), or choose a good ale yeast that can ferment 60-65.